Art History Quesions?

Just need some help answering a few questions about African Art:





1. How did the land of Africa shape the art of the people produced?





2. How was art used by the Africans?





3. How was art used to perptuate history and why did this need to be done?





4. What did Europeans find when they first journeyed to Africa?





5. Why was each of the following cities famous?


Timbuktu -


Benin -


Kilma -





6. Why did the early European appreciation of African art fade?





7. What attitudes and preconceptions kept Europeans from appreaciating the art of Africa in the ninteenth century? HOw was African art treated then?





8. What twentieth century artists developed a true appreciation for African art and were profoundly affected by it?





9. What lifestyle areas did African art influence in the American South?





Thanks

Art History Quesions?
Contrary to what I suspect you might think, the first europeans to establish permanent trade outposts and to explore Africa were the portuguese, they started to do that in 1415 and finalized the exploration of the west coast in 1488 when Bartolomeu Dias crossed the Cape of Good Hope. So a good 400 years before the english that you include in your questions.





Art in Africa is directly and intimately linked to religion, apart from decorated domestic utensils like spoons and pots, all artistic representations are religious, back in the early 15th century and even now.





There are several descriptions of african art by the first portuguese explorers, they're not easy to find in english though, but in portuguese the archives are among the richest in the world. Besides coastal exploration the portuguese were the first to establish diplomatic bonds with an african king, the king of Congo. In 1491 a diplomatic expedition of 80 portuguese noblemen and aids reaches the capital of the kingdom of Congo and are received by the then most powerful king in Africa.





The attitude towards african art was as expected for a european recently out of the middle age, for most of them it was a "barbaric" and "heathen" representations but among the expeditions there were the ancestors of anthropologists, the "alchemists" or doctors that described exhaustively the plants, cures, animals, art and religion of the africans.





The first artifacts of african art reached Portugal in those early decades of the 15 th century like curiosities and were even displayed in the palace of the king John II of Portugal.





400 years later, when the second and massive wave of imperialism, english, french, belgian, dutch and portuguese, took over all Africa definitely, the attitude continued ver much the same, although there was a difference between the english and the portuguese, the english had a far more superior attitude towards the africans and everything in it's society while the portuguese tended to mix with the natives which led to african art in Portugal being so common it was even nornal in a middle class houhold to display a statue of "pau-preto", black wood from which most statuettes were made. Curiously enough that remained, although the portuguese colonies gained independence in 1974, I would say today most portuguese have one or several statues or other african art form at home, I have several statues, the oldest from the late 1700's and the newest from the late 60's when my father was in Africa as a soldier.





Hope it helped

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